


The Forgotten Traveller

by Novalight



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 06:03:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novalight/pseuds/Novalight
Summary: The world was barren, and hot. He couldn't remember a time before this. Sometimes, if he was lucky, his grandmother would speak of a much different time - of a time where the world was not barren and hot, like it was today. Instead, a time when there were vast oceans and nearly endless forests.He set out, drifting.





	The Forgotten Traveller

The world was barren, and hot. He couldn't remember a time before this. Sometimes, if he was lucky, his grandmother would speak of a much different time - of a time where the world was not barren and hot, like it was today. Instead, a time when there were vast oceans and nearly endless forests.

 

His grandmother was an old woman with a soft, kind face marked with wrinkles and time. Her hair was pure white and frizzly and, when she walked, she walked with a limp. She often stayed in her room which was near the back of the make shift house. When he asked how she received the limp, she would only stare sadly into his eyes. Her eyes were old and he felt they whispered secrets to him that her heart wasn’t prepared to give up.

 

His grandmother would often tell him, away from his parents, of her time - of a world filled with advanced technologies. Her eyes would mist over. Her thin, bony hands would turn transparent as she gripped her walking stick tightly.

 

He kept her tales close to his heart. When she passed, he moved away to travel - to find the land she had mourned for, yet so desperately wanted to forget. This was a land called 'Yorvik'. The land was expansive and was made up of smaller cities that came together to form Yorvik.

 

He travels around the globe, finding cities that were once vast and bright buried in sand, with strange creature glaring at his back as he passes by, almost as if they were whispering

'Who are you strange creature?' He uncovers collapsed houses, the Earth unforgiving in destroying all that once stood and claiming back the land.

 

He met the Traveller. The Traveller was old, yes, with a white beard and wrinkled eyes. His eyes were clear as they gazed upon him, welcoming him with a familiarity he had not felt in the years since his grandmother passed.

 

He learned that the Traveller was from an antique land where two vast, trunk-less legs of stone stand marking its position in the endless desert.

 

Near them on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command tell a different tale of the land. On a pedestal these words appear: "We doomed the Earth to our selfishness and the sun rained down upon us, turning the water into sand, the sand into earth and earth into molten lava to burn us of our sins."

 

Shaken, he told The Traveller of what he found at their shared camp. The fire was raging, golden flames licking the air. The old man shook his head softly, “I have always known this would happen. My boy, have you heard of Yorvik?” he asked. His voice was sorrowful. His face suddenly seemed to age years.

 

The light from the flames illuminated his tried, worn face. Wrinkles bored deep into his skin. His expression was one of tired sorrow. His entire body sagged. He suddenly wondered how old the Traveller must be.

 

"Yes, from my grandmother. Do....do you know what happened to the world?" His usually silvery voice trembled, sounding brittle and strangled.

 

The Traveller stared at him through half lidded eyes. He suddenly noticed how tired he appeared, with his ragged torn clothes and sun burned skin from where he couldn't shield his skin from the sun. He appeared so tired that his eyeballs seemed to sag with the weight of what they had seen.

 

"Yorvik." The old man laughed, the sound bitter and hoarse. "It was once a united nation, ruling over most of the land that we see." He gestured to the barren, sandy land around them. "The King grew greedy and took more and more," He sighed, staring into the fire. "They turned a once beautiful, advanced country and run it into the ground, taking everyone with it. My wife and I, we had a disagreement. She left, travelling far away from me and she took our unborn son with her."

 

His eyes widen, but the old man continued. "Soon after, all the plants began to die. But still, the King continued, ignorant to what he was doing, what he was causing." The Traveller turned his milky eyes towards him, darkening with something he couldn't place. "But my boy, you have returned!"

 

"What are you talking about?" He asked as the Traveller stood, grabbing his wrist.

 

"You are my grandson, the one who can save the world! You are Royalty, heir to the Yorvik throne." The Traveller grinned, suddenly looking mad. His grip on his wrist tightened. "You will save me, your King!"

 

Roughly shaking the Traveller's tight grip on him, he ran. He ran and ran and ran. The old man shouted after him, "For Yorvik, my boy!" until he was out of reach.

 

He returned home, falling into his worried father's arms. He never travelled again.

**Author's Note:**

> I based this off of a prompt I saw. It was called 'We are the Last humans left' and got me thinking. We, as a species, are the only the only member of the Hominidae family intelligent enough to evolve language and technology. I was amazed at this fact. So, here it is, a post dead Earth.


End file.
